Today, the seventh day of the seventh month, is the Star Festival [Tanabata] which, according to legend is when the two stars Altair and Vega get to meet, once each year. [These two stars are usually separated by the milky way. ]

There are a variety of legends around this lunar phenomenon, but the most popular one goes something like this:

The daughter of the Sky King would sit weaving by the river in the sky we know as the Milky Way. She worked so hard at her weaving, she didn’t get any opportunity to meet someone to fall in love with. Her father arranged for her to meet a stellar young man, The Herder of Stars, who lived on the other side of the river. He chose well, and the two young people quickly fell in love, and married. So far so good.

The problem was that the couple were so in love that the princess no longer sat for hours weaving, and the young man forgot to keep track of the stars, which strayed all over the sky, causing havoc.

Frustrated, the Sky King separated the lovers to different sides of the river, promising that, if they worked hard, he would allow them to meet up on the 7th day of the 7th month.

Legend further adds that the first time the couple tried to meet, they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. The princess wished with all her heart to cross the river, and a flock of magpies came and made a bridge with their wings so that the couple could cross to meet each other.

It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.

And I told you that story because… one of the traditions of Tanabata is to write a wish onto a piece of paper, and hang it in a tree, hoping that whatever the equivalent of “a bridge of magpie wings” is for you will come to pass.

And I wondered, what would you write? One of the most powerful parts of the wedding planning process is simply KNOWING what you want. Once you have that, you’re so much closer to actually achieving the wedding of your dreams.

I regularly speak with couples who have no idea of what they want or don’t want for their ceremony and celebrations, and most often it’s because they honestly haven’t thought that there were options open to them. Fair enough, since every wedding they’ve ever attended or watched on TV has been pretty much the same as the next one.

There are a myriad of different ways to celebrate, and depending on what’s important to you, you’ll want to spend more of your money and time and energy making those parts work. So tonight, if the sky clears enough to see the milky way, take some time out to dream, and wish, and plan in broad brushstrokes, for the celebration you really want to create.

See yourself here:

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